It is really a marvel how few men can jump a woman on to her horse properly, and how few women go up as they should. The operation is quite easy, if only the man can be persuaded to _stand still_ and merely give his hand a little heave upwards. The majority of men who do not know, no sooner feel the foot on their hand than they count hard and run backwards towards the horse's head, carrying the unfortunate woman's foot with them. Thus, instead of sending her up, dragging her down till the whole thing ends in a wild struggle, she clinging round the pommels with her chest, chin, and arms. Too degrading an exhibition. If the man will stand still and take it quietly, and if the woman will just spring off her right leg and straighten her left knee, she will arrive in her saddle gracefully and lightly, and the man will not have felt her weight at all. It is best to come to a thorough understanding with the man before you begin, as to when he expects you to spring. If this is to be when he counts three, or as soon as your foot is in his hand? Do not in any case allow him to have hold of the hem of your skirt with your foot. Unless this is free it will hold you down, and a sort of Jack-in-the-box-performance will begin. You spring and the man's hand remains inert, then he jerks up your left foot when you are standing stolidly on the right, and generally the end of all is that you arrive in a heap on your saddle, and finish by kicking the man in the face. How to have a quick eye to hounds? Yes, how? But I do not know. It is a gift which few have, and most people have _not_. To keep looking out for the hounds in front and all round if you are _not_ seeing them, and to keep your eye on the leading hounds if you _are_ in that lucky position, to notice every turn and be quick to turn with them, to cut off the corners and go the shortest way, a sort of anticipation without anticipating, that is all I can say about it. Never ride exactly _behind_ the hounds, as if they check you are thus sure to hustle them on over the line and incur the wrath of the huntsman besides spoiling your own sport and everybody else's. Ride either to one side or the other of the pack, down wind for choice, about forty yards in their wake, so as to give hounds plenty of room to swing or stop, should they come to a check. As there is hardly one woman in fifty or a hundred who can go her own line and pick her way all through a run--or perhaps it would be more courteous to say _I_ do not _know_ many who, if put down in a country on an ordinary hunter alone with the hounds, could find their way into and out of ten fields in succession; it is as well for most women to have a pilot. First, though, ascertain that the man is willing to accept this onerous position. Then be careful _to give him room_, not to ride in his pocket or get in his way, and above all things to give him time at his fences to land _or fall_ without jumping on him. [Illustration: _MISS SERRELL ON COLLEEN._]